Sheila Stewart - obituary

Writer brought up by the Waifs and Strays Society who chronicled a lost rural
way of life

Sheila Stewart

6:00PM BST 20 Sep 2014

SHEILA STEWART, who has died aged 86, was the illegitimate child of a servant who, from the age of three, was brought up in homes run by the Waifs and Strays Society (now the Church of England Children’s Society); in later life she became a successful author of books and plays which chronicled traditional life in rural communities of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire.

Nowadays children’s homes have something of a bad press but as Sheila Stewart recounted in A Home from Home (1967), a memoir of her early life, while their residents often endured loneliness and misery, the homes could also be places where children were given compassion and support that enabled them to make something positive of their lives.

She was born Sheila McCairn in the fishing community of Appledore, Devon, on January 6 1928 and it was only later in life that she discovered, from her birth certificate, that she was illegitimate. Shortly after her birth, her mother Maisie moved to London, leaving her in the care of “Danma” and “Danpa” Cox, elderly and impoverished relatives whose diet, she recalled, consisted largely of shellfish collected on the Taw estuary.

One day, when Sheila was three, a “lady” turned up at their tiny cottage: “Danma gave the lady a brown paper bundle tied up with string and I trustingly held out my hand to her,” she recalled. “I did not know that I was walking away from Danma Cox for ever.” From then on she was brought up in various children’s homes under the supervision of Waifs’ and Strays’ Society committees and patrons. She remained in sporadic contact with an “Auntie Flo” in Barnstable, but never saw the Coxes again. It was only later in life that she learned from her “auntie” how the elderly couple had fretted after she had been taken away by “the welfare” and how, though illiterate, they had treasured the piece of paper upon which the lady had written Sheila’s name and address.

Sheila Stewart, third from right in checked dress

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Sheila Stewart recalled the terrible shock of abandonment, the bullying by other girls, the harsh regime in some homes where corporal punishment was the norm, and the petty humiliations that were the lot of “Home” children (she hated the term Waifs and Strays): they could have their heads shaved to combat lice, or be compelled to wear clogs, leading them to be ostracised by classmates at school. Sheila was forced to wear the same pair of boots for several years, resulting in her needing an operation on her deformed feet in later life.

But she also recalled close friendships and the kindness of many staff, notably a “Matron Bailey” to whom she dedicated her memoir — and the good intentions of the Society which, in general, tried to do its best for those in its care with meagre resources.

Most of Sheila’s companions left school at 14 to work as domestic servants, so when Sheila confounded expectations by becoming the first Home girl to pass the exam to grammar school (in Ealing), to begin with the Society was loath to give such a privilege to one girl when it might lead to resentment among the rest. However, Sheila had some strong supporters and, after 18 months of prevarication (by which time her home had been evacuated to Englemere Wood, Ascot for the duration of the Second World War), she was allowed to attend the grammar school at nearby Bracknell for a trial period of a year. Despite her late start, she thrived in the academic environment, and the Society allowed her to stay on to take higher school certificate.

Even after she left the care of the Society and her last children’s home, Grenville House in Ascot, to train as a teacher at Bishop Otter College, Chichester, Sheila’s old matron continued to send her parcels of “tuck” and pocket money. When she married her husband, Eric Stewart, in 1952, the matron and her staff gave her a white wedding and reception at the home.

After qualifying as a teacher, Sheila Stewart taught PE and English at the Friends’ School in Sibford, Oxfordshire. Then, after the birth of her three children, she established a private nursery school in her home, later moving to purpose-built premises in Bloxham. Many of the ideas she pioneered at the school were documented as “best practice” by the Department of Education.

After the publication of her memoir in 1967 Sheila Stewart sold her school to concentrate on her writing, and the family moved to the village of Ascott in Warwickshire, later settling in the Warwickshire village of Brailes.

Her second book, Country Kate (1971) was a charming family portrait, largely written in Warwickshire dialect, based on the recollections of an elderly countrywoman who had grown up as the daughter of the local vet in a Cotswold village before the Great War. Her adaptation of the book for radio won the Writers’ Guild Award of 1974 for Best Radio Feature Script.

Sheila Stewart’s technique of writing in the vernacular would be shown to best effect in Lifting the Latch; A Life on the Land (1987), on which she began work after a local butcher suggested she write the life story of Mont Abbott, an elderly former farm labourer living in the Oxfordshire village of Enstone. “Thee can come if thee wants,” Abbott wrote in reply to her letter of introduction. “I have no transport, only a wheelbarrow.”

With his permission, Sheila Stewart recorded all their conversations and then worked his words into book form. The result was a lyrical masterpiece of social history that evoked a lost world of carting and shepherding, thriving church choirs, country fairs and the day-to-day life of a tightly-knit rural community. Reviewers compared it to Lark Rise to Candleford as a classic of time and place.

Sheila Stewart’s final book, Ramlin Rose: The Boatwoman’s Story (1993), drew on recorded interviews to describe the experiences of women who had lived and worked on horse-drawn narrow boats, plying the country’s canals.

A keen member of the WI and an enthusiastic gardener, Sheila Stewart was an active member of her village community, often playing a leading role in organising flower shows, pensioners’ Christmas parties and other events.